When I heard the first chord of "Beyond Ground Zero" the same feeling took over that I had already felt a few times when listening to solo albums of guitarists. Good guitar work, however, the rest of the used musical palette seems rather colorless on me. Both artists from Hamburg, Thomas Kirschler (music) and Christian Meyer-Pedersen (lyrics) present to us an album with rock influences from the 70s and 80s, spiced also with progressive rock elements of the present, though. E-guitar and synthesizer dominate the instrumentation.
One marks immediately the work´s high artistic claim. This is not the work of beginners. There are many facets which the duet put together, they are very nice as such, and Thomas Meyer owns the craft of joining them to something substantial. He plays all instruments, like Lenny Kravitz, and this is admirable. Only the final result is not convincing.
Thomas Kirschler is absolutely a very good guitarists and also the drums arrangements are well put. But the bass, ordinarily an important rhythm instrument, is not really present and the Synthies seem uninspired. It would be interesting what would happen if one locked up both of them with a few studio musicians once again for one week in the studio.
Furthermore one has to note that Meyer-Pedersens voice is very expressive, indeed, and firm in tone, however, in those so often used higher pitches it sounds enervating.
The lyrics testify for a high vocal sensitivity and deal absolutely appropriately with the big subject of the longplayer. The artwork of the record stands out from other productions, and very positively. The album is probably produced for the American market and impresses with a provoking cover - clouds of dust from ground zero, from where the paradoxically still intact twin towers stand out. Are here here German musicians with this album album working through the American past? This calculation could work out.
Gernot Hermenau
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